Going ‘over the top’ at Messines by John A. Lee

On 7th June 1917, New Zealand
Labour politician and author John A. Lee was a 25 year old, serving with the 9th
(Hawke's Bay) Company of the 1st Battalion, Wellington Infantry Regiment on the
Western Front.

Some 50 years after the war, in 1968 he
made this recording, still vividly recalling the experience of ‘going over the
top’ behind the thundering Allied artillery barrage, which he calls “the
greatest curtain of Hell in all history.”

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Going ‘over the top’ at Messines by John A. Lee

On 7th June 1917, New Zealand
Labour politician and author John A. Lee was a 25 year old, serving with the 9th
(Hawke's Bay) Company of the 1st Battalion, Wellington Infantry Regiment on the
Western Front.

Some 50 years after the war, in 1968 he
made this recording, still vividly recalling the experience of ‘going over the
top’ behind the thundering Allied artillery barrage, which he calls “the
greatest curtain of Hell in all history.”

lthough he doesn’t mention it here, John
A. Lee was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions that day at
Messines, for capturing a German machine-gun post. The citation reads:

“For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to
duty. During our offensive, he showed great dash and coolness in attacking and
capturing a machine-gun with its team. Later, when the advance was held up by
an enemy post, he skilfully rushed it with two of his comrades, capturing two
machine-guns and forty men."

The following year in France, he was wounded
in the left arm and had it amputated, before being repatriated to New Zealand
where he became active in the Returned Soldiers’ Association (R.S.A.) and the
fledgling Labour Party. He was elected to Parliament in 1922 and enjoyed a long
and colourful political career. He
campaigned on social issues, particularly poverty which he had experienced
first-hand, growing up in a single parent home in Dunedin and spending time in
borstal and prison for theft. During the
Depression he wrote his first novel “Children of the Poor” (1934) which was a
best-seller. Later, as Minister for Housing in the first Labour
government of 1935, he was involved in the start of wide-spread construction of
state housing in New Zealand.